


Go to ground

by Keenir



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 16:30:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2514422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>warning: While I use humanoids in this fic, be warned that I'm once more using Earth critters as inspiration.</p>
<p>summary: Hoshi gets thrown in a cave, because of a word. Can Malcolm and Elizabeth get her out?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go to ground

**Author's Note:**

> Another being reposted from [MHExplosion](https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/MHExplosion/conversations/messages/6039).
> 
> (question: if 'ofc' can also mean 'original female character' and 'omc' can mean 'original male character'...then, would an original species be an 'os'?).
> 
> note: the 'ng' in the names is a single phenome, like the 'ng' in "sewing".
> 
> note: for a few months now, I've been trying to think of how to work Komodo Dragons into a fic...particularly their childhood.

~~~~  
  
  
  
 _She's gone to ground, down to earth, unable to be flushed out_ , Malcolm thought as he followed the Gguuennng errand boy into the chambers of -- one of the higher-ups -- and then left them alone. _And the Gguuennng are at fault, its them who're the reason for her doing so._  
  
  
  
The higher-up didn't turn to look at Malcolm. Instead, he continued to watch the flames dance in the middle of the room. Flames that were between him and Malcolm. "Kuu seruseru, you have come to make a petition on behalf of those you consort with?"  
  
  
  
Gguuennng weren't as terrestrial as Humans, a product of having left the trees a lot more recently in their evolutionary history. Therefore, their chairs were entirely composed of poles...no wanting to sit on something that looked like a rock, after all.  
  
  
  
"I'm here to ask what you've done with Ensign Sato." _Before she went missing, she sent me a message, saying that the personal name is a private thing, at least in Gguuennng eyes._  
  
  
  
"You are of her species?" The necks didn't narrow as much as their analogues in humans did -- it was more gradual than abrupt, with them.  
  
  
  
 _No, I just look like._.. trailing off...their sensory equipment was still little-known to any Starfleet ally, even the Vulcans, who had taken one look at this planet, and ran for cover. "Yes, I am also Human."  
  
  
  
"Remarkable. And seeing you," raising his head to look over the briefly-low fire, "proves my suspicion about Ensign Sato."  
  
  
  
"What suspicion is that?" _If you've hurt her, I don't care if your species abides by diplomatic immunity or not -- your name is still mud._ "Where is she?"  
  
  
  
Blandly, "Ensign Sato has been placed under guard."  
  
  
  
"On what charges?" Malcolm all but hissed. "What does she stand accused of?"  
  
  
  
The higher-up blinked, his furry ruff rising in defensiveness. "Do not stomp the blame upon me for your inability to protect your own people."  
  
  
  
 _What??_ Malcolm started to step around the fire, rather than wait for a really low point to leap over.  
  
  
  
"I will allow you to visit the cavern which contains Ensign Sato and several Gguuennng."  
  
  
  
"Why?" _Don't get me wrong - I'm glad I'm going to Hoshi...but part of me smells a trap._  
  
  
  
"I do not understand. You do not seek to speak with Ensign Sato?" his ruff lowering and spreading almost into a frill.  
  
  
  
"I do. I was simply curious as to why you were being so generous."  
  
  
  
The frill fell back against shoulders. "Primal courtesy. That simple."  
  
~~  
  
  
  
The guard's tongue wasn't forked, though it did flick out as Malcolm and the higher-up walked by. The guard didn't get up, just continued its lazing about, lying on the ground, sunning in the small clearing in these woods. Not even the slab of steak being carried by the higher-up caught the guard's attention, and the giant lizard continued to snoze. The guard's body was covered by a fine coating of hair...more like the thin strands on humans, than the thick pelts which coated many mammals across the galaxy.  
  
  
  
Malcolm and the higher-up walked the length of the clearing, a plot of ground whose topsoil had been gouged away by generations of scrabbling claws, and they arrived at the mouth of an underground cavern. The mouth was long and horizontal, only a few feet at the highest point. From where he stood, even when he crouched, he could only hope that it got taller -- but not if it did so with dangerous rapidity.  
  
  
  
"Ensign Sato is within there," Malcolm was told.  
  
  
  
"Why?"  
  
  
  
"For her protection," as though it were obvious.  
  
  
  
Abruptly, from the mouth of the cavern, a dozen infants zipped out  & heading for the trees. They looked more like miniature versions of the guard, than they resembled any humanoid infant.  
  
  
  
Following them, though not as fast as them, was a female Gguuennng who also crawled out of the cavern mouth on her hands and feet -- unlike Humans, her species had arms and legs of equal length. She paused to catch her breath, then tried to pounce upon one of the infants.  
  
  
  
Before she could snatch it up, the higher-up tossed the slab of steak in front of her. Completely ignoring the infant now, the famished woman fell upon the steak. Gguuennng were able to chew, that much at least was known about them. This one, though, either had an impairment, or simply opted not to bother; instead, chomping down and tearing at the boneless flesh of the steak.  
  
  
  
The higher-up motioned to a spot a few feet away from the eater, and said, "You may perch here for a conversation with Ensign Sato."  
  
  
  
"I can't go in?" Malcolm asked, hiding the fact that his person was sheltering the infant that, mere moments ago, had been on the woman's menu.  
  
  
  
A bit of alarm showed through. "Why would you want to enter the pregnancy chamber?"  
  
  
  
"Humans like to talk face-to-face with one another."  
  
  
  
Alarm shifted to consernation and confusion. "And yet your species entered space?"  
  
  
  
Malcolm wasn't sure he wanted to address that. As he crouched down, "You sure she -" pointing to the eater, "-isn't going to grab at me?"  
  
  
  
"You are too large," Malcolm was assured, only to be then told; "the guard will rend you apart should you do anything inappropriate."  
  
  
  
 _Great, just great...not like they told Enterprise or the landing party what their cultural tabboos were._ "Thanks for the warning."  
  
  
  
Puzzled, the higher-up walked back to where the guard lay, and perched on its back.  
  
  
  
"Hoshi?" Malcolm whispered into the cavern entrance. Sure enough, the eater didn't even notice him. But when Hoshi didn't respond, Malcolm tried again, a bit louder this time.  
  
  
  
"Malcolm?" he was asked. Hoshi's voice.  
  
  
  
"I'm here," he assured her.  
  
  
  
"They let you here?" Then, "Of course they did...not like they'd bother to hide something like this." She didn't sound pleased.  
  
  
  
"What is this place?" Malcolm asked, concern for what he and Hoshi were in the middle of. The fact that he didn't know what it was, only made it worse.  
  
  
  
"A birthing chamber. At least, in here. I just saw," she sighed, "someone vomitting up a dozen babies..."  
  
  
  
"She's out here, now, dining on steak. The infants made it to the trees."  
  
  
  
"That's a comfort." Hoshi said. Then, the relief washing from her voice, now tinged with regret, "I made a mistake," Hoshi says.  
  
  
  
"We'll fix it," Malcolm tells her. _Whatever it is, whatever happened. I'm not leaving you in there._  
  
  
  
"Did you bring the universal translator?"  
  
  
  
Grimly, "Captain Archer wouldn't let me down here without it."  
  
  
  
"Its useless," Hoshi said dejectedly.  
  
  
  
"Seemed to work just fine when I talked to...Hnengkneg," naming the higher-up from before.  
  
  
  
No way to tell if Hoshi was nodding or disagreeing. "I never realized...all wrong. I made one mistake..." her words paused for a cough that may or may not've been covering a sob. "Pronouns depended on that word...now its no good."  
  
  
  
"What word?" Malcolm asked.  
  
  
  
"'Pregnant'."  
  
  
  
"They arrested you because of a mistranslation?"  
  
  
  
In a very little voice, "You could say that."  
  
~~~~~  
  
  
  
Malcolm had, eventually, returned to Enterprise. After, naturally, insisting that he get Hoshi out, even it he had to personally dig the entire cavern up...to which Hoshi had said that, if he even started to try, the Gguuennng would kill him -- literally; no translation problems there, she said. Hoshi had asked him to try another way.  
  
  
  
So he was in Sickbay. "You're sure its non-invasive?" Malcolm asked.  
  
  
  
"One hundred percent. Sure is cute. You sure his mom isn't going to raise a stink over you absconding her child?"  
  
  
  
"The mother was the one trying to eat him," Malcolm said simply, not raising his eyes from the PADD screen. While Elizabeth Cutler was engrossed in the infant's adorableness  & in making sure that the equipment was working on the infant -- 'sample' -- Malcolm'd rescued/procured, Malcolm made the UT tell him the definition to that word.  
  
  
  
 ** _Pregnant. The act or process of gestation, of carrying a pre-infant to the completion of internal development, before the infant is expelled into the world or a pouch. See also _he/she_ and _male/female_._**  
  
  
  
"Okay," broke into Malcolm's train of thought. Elizabeth'd spoken to him. In the silence of the sickbay, a quiet word was thunderous.  
  
  
  
Malcolm set the UT down, and strode over to her computers.  
  
  
  
"Gguuennng evolved from something like a furry monitor lizard," Cutler said, looking at the sample. "A lot like a Komodo Dragon on Earth."  
  
  
  
 _The one endangered species that refuses to go extinct_. "The guard was about twice that size - maybe twenty feet long."  
  
  
  
Cutler nodded. "Tail too?"  
  
  
  
"No, that's seven more feet, and as chunky as a crocodile's tail." Thinking, "I thought you said the Gguuennng were arboreal." _Or was that a now-disgarded theory, doctor?_  
  
  
  
"That too," Cutler said, standing up fully, meeting his questioning gaze. "The guards' species got smaller, and took to the trees, where they became proto-Gguuennng. When they returned to the ground, as bipeds this time, they were Gguuennng."  
  
  
  
Nodding, Makes sense, "But how does this help us?"  
  
  
  
She shrugged. "Know your opponent and know yourself, and you will win a thousand of a thousand battles."  
  
  
  
"Sun Tzu."  
  
  
  
She nodded.  
  
  
  
"That leaves just one problem."  
  
  
  
"Knowing them."  
  
  
  
Malcolm nodded.  
  
~~  
  
  
  
Day and night came indirectly to the cavern's inhabitants. Though the sun's setting reduced the light that the cavern could catch, there were nocturnal molds that glowed in the darkness...fortunately for Hoshi's peace of mind, the molds were more of flat films that coated the bottom of the creek that ran through the cavern: fresh water.  
  
  
  
In the cavern, Hoshi watched as one of her fellow captives gave birth...the way that pretty much any placental humanoid would, though without the screams and curses. No sooner had the infants clawed off their amniotic membranes -- losing the single claw that each of them'd been born with, like a turtle's egg horn -- than the adult who was lying next to the infants' mother opened his mouth...and the kids all went inside.  
  
  
  
The mother took a nap, seemingly oblivious to the world around her, appearing to be uncaring of the fate of her children. Then again, they're well taken care of, Hoshi considered.  
  
  
  
Malcolm hadn't seen a Gguuennng woman eating a steak, Hoshi knew. That was the dad . . . or at least a Gguuennng male. _Wonder if there's an elaborate system of chosing a guy to carry the kids in his gut, or if its de facto biological fatherhood_. Hoshi knew that somebody else would have to be the one to write that dissertation -- one of her students, perhaps.  
  
  
  
Years ago, when she herself was a kid, Hoshi had helped her older sister take care of the pet fish. Mouthbrooders. When danger threatened, instinct would make the guardian fish open its mouth, and in would swim all the hatchlings.  
  
  
  
Years later, when she was teaching in the Amazon, Hoshi saw a live Komodo Dragon. The enviromental changes that'd been inflicted upon the Earth actually ended up making much of the reconstructed forests into prime Komodo habitat. After they hatched, baby Komodos would climb up trees, since they were a delicacy for adults; thankfully for the species, adults were too heavy to climb trees.  
  
  
  
 _The Gguuennng combined both evolutionary strategies. And when they come down from the trees, I bet they're big enough, by that point, to be taught about the basics of civilization._  
  
  
  
It got dark outside, but there was just enough light in the cavern for Hoshi to see the new mother wake up  & leave the cavern. If the woman said anything to the carrier of her children, Hoshi couldn't hear it.  
  
  
  
Hoshi quietly wished the woman luck -- it was thirty feet of passage between the wall she leaned against, and the cavern mouth -- thirty feet that one had to crawl through.  
  
  
  
It was day again, with the creek being not as bright - again - when Hoshi heard Malcolm's voice again. "You can come out now," sounding jubilant.  
  
  
  
"Kuu seruseru, you may indeed exit the cavern, Ensign Sato female. Kuu seruseru, make an effort not to eat any gestating parents or resting infants in there," said the Gguuennng higher-up that she'd met when she'd arrived...the one that she'd given her excuse to...the one that'd sent her into here, in the first place.  
  
  
  
Hoshi had a feeling that there were myths and stories, on this world, about what she was being 'asked' not to do.  
  
  
  
Hoshi got up, leaped up & clambered onto the tunnel's entrance/exit spot, and started to crawl. She could still remember where the tunnel narrowed, and she had a bad feeling that certain parts of her body were going to be sore -- again -- after emerging from the tunnel. The only good thing about the tunnel was that it didn't trigger her claustrophobia: it looked to go on for miles both to the right and to the left. Similarly, the cavern had appeared unending.  
  
  
  
When she finally set hand - and then foot - outside of the tunnel, Hoshi collapsed to one side, gulping in great mouthfuls of air from the wide-open space. I'm out.  
  
  
  
Both Malcolm and...and Cutler were waiting for her.  
  
  
  
"Kuu seruseru, leave this place," said the higher-up, omitting the Gguuennng word for 'please'...and the one for 'now'...though the 'now' was definately implied, Hoshi decided. She nodded, and let Malcolm pick her up, helping her to her feet.  
  
  
  
The humans said good-byes, and headed back to the shuttlecraft. "How did you convince them to let me go?" Hoshi asked.  
  
  
  
"It was Malcolm's idea," Cutler said, taking the lead in the walk, letting Malcolm and Hoshi walk next to each other & nobody else. "He suggested I tell the Gguuennng the truth about human gestation. Every - gory - detail," sounding like she was grinning.  
  
  
  
Malcolm shrugged, but Hoshi kept holding onto him like the liferaft that he was.  
  
  
  
"But they did mention," Cutler said, "that they put you in the cave because of something you told them," and didn't press for details.  
  
  
  
"What exactly did you tell them?" Malcolm asked, curious.  
  
  
  
"I..."  
  
  
  
"Hoshi?"  
  
  
  
"I told them that it was perfectly normal for a pregnant person."  
  
  
  
"What is?"  
  
  
  
"Morning sickness."  
  
  
  
Malcolm nearly stopped then and there; though his jaw slackened, it didn't drop; and his eyes did widen. "What?" having a feeling he hadn't heard wrong.  
  
  
  
"Well," Hoshi said, in a tone that would have been defensive to anyone other than Malcolm, "I didn't want to tell them that their food was making me throw up. I figured that, if they thought I was pregnant, I'd get excused from the gathering, and sent back to Enterprise, with no ill will."  
  
  
  
"You didn't know," Malcolm said; not self-obvious; just comforting.  
  
  
  
They walked in silence after that, just enjoying each other's company. They were almost back to the shuttlepod when, "You know something?" Hoshi asked.  
  
  
  
"What's that?" Malcolm asked.  
  
  
  
"After all that trouble over a case of false morning sickness... I'm actually looking forwards to the real thing."  
  
  
  
Malcolm hoped he survived the experience. "We're almost at that point, Hoshi." Well into the dating, starting on the heavy petting, almost to the engagement stage.  
  
  
  
"Don't take too long," Hoshi teased. Seriously, "Most women in my family don't have kids after they hit thirty; I don't have forever, Malcolm."  
  
  
  
"Worry not, Hoshi," Malcolm said, "by the end of this year, you'll have a ring on your finger."  
  
  
  
"Better have more than that," patting her belly.  
  
  
  
They behaved themselves on the shuttlecraft ride up; but once they got to Enterprise, Hoshi saw that Malcolm's bedsheets were umber and a turgid mud-colour. Time to go to ground.  
  
~~~~  
  
  
  
Translations:  
  
'kuu seruseru' = 'I address you', 'I speak to you'.  
  
~~~~  



End file.
